It's finished and I like it! This painting also brings back many memories of teachers I had as a kid...especially my 8th grade teacher. He used to wait until I was finished a drawing...and he could tell because I would slip it UNDER my binder...then he would walk down my row and take it and give me heck (lightly) for drawing when I should be working. I found out a few years later that he still HAS those drawings. He said he's waiting for me to become a famous artist and then he'll sell them and retire off what he gets for them. I remember getting tired of him stealing my drawings and one day I did a horrible caricature of him on the blackboard at recess. It was his head with an exaggerated nose on a wolf's body. He was the last one in after the students and took one look at the board, looked right at me (how on earth did he KNOW?) and said; "You can do better than that." He then proceeded to call me to the front of the classroom, handed me a piece of chalk and told me to fix it....and then began the lesson while I corrected whatever it was on the drawing...
I had some pretty awesome teachers...and they all got some pretty great drawings!

But that has nothing to do with this painting...other than it's for a teacher who is retiring as a gift from the mother of the little girl in the picture. (Bit of a mouthful I know...but it IS well past lunch!)

This painting also reminds me that I MISS teaching painting. You learn so much by showing others what you do, and you get to make new friends and try new stuff you wouldn't normally try. I have a list of possible places in the city where I could teach painting...maybe a sketchbook class or a mixed media class. Oh, the growing list of creative 'to do'. Sometimes it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a bit bigger of a house....to have more people over for creating and tea!